Category: Education

‘Project Innovate’ Brings New Laptops & Ways To Learn To Chiles

chilesweb — L.-r.: Chiles fifth graders Drew Moose, Ava Campbell, De’Vantae Jackson and Paige Duffield.

Chiles Elementary fifth-grader Aaron Back has his notebook open, and his laptop charged up. Instead of doing his research by paging through a book — and good luck finding a book on sand boils, which he currently is studying — Back is able to peruse the web, scribbling his findings and ideas on paper.

“I like that you have more than one option,’’ says Back, who is 10 years old. “When you’re reading, you only have one option, but (on the computer) you have lots of options you can go to.”

Back is one of 146 fifth-graders at Chiles, which is located in Tampa Palms, taking part in Hillsborough County’s “Project Innovate,” which provides students with a Hewlett Packard x360 laptop for a completely different — and a little more advanced — learning experience.

“The concept is to prepare our students for the digital age they are growing up in and to increase engagement with their teachers, as well as meeting the needs of students by differentiating instruction in a more confidential way,’’ says Chiles assistant principal Ashley Galfond.

The county has provided 150 of the laptops to Chiles, with the hope of changing the learning landscape and getting kids comfortable with more high-tech means of taking notes and producing projects.

Schoolwork is done using Microsoft products, and the work is all held in OneNote, a digital note-taking app. If insurance issues can be worked out, the students may even be able to take those laptops home during the second semester, but for now, they can still access their work on their families’ home computers.

Back and the other students will be able to ultimately file their assignments to English Language Arts (ELA) teacher Nancy Erickson in many different media. “They can do their projects however they want,’’ Erickson says. “If you’re passionate and an artist and want to make posters, that’s a great thing. I can’t draw to save my life, so I might be more comfortable doing something digital-oriented. The nice part is, they can look at the info and say, ‘This is the best way I can present my information, so I’m going to present it in a brochure, make a poster or make a movie trailer.’”

Galfond is in her second year at Chiles, after coming over from Turner-Bartels, the grades K-8 school in Live Oak Preserve.

chiles_aaron — Chiles fifth-grader Aaron Back. 10, works on his project about sand boils.

At Turner-Bartels, Galfond was part of preparing the first “cohort,” or group of students working together, for Project Innovate, before coming to Chiles last year to prepare the students for being the second cohort, which started this new school year.

“We’ve been doing it on a small scale to learn as we go and to be able to support the students so there is a successful implementation,’’ Galfond says, adding that the intent is to include other grades in the near future.

The current laptops have keyboards, but also can be flipped to work as a tablet. But, Erickson said the goal is to get kids used to the more traditional laptop form. In fact, she says, so many kids have iPads and other tablets that this has been their first work, for many, on a regular laptop computer.

“They don’t have the basic computer skills that, I guess, I use every day,’’ Erickson says. “They are not users, they are players, if that makes sense. So, things like editing, and copying and pasting things like URLs (Uniform Resource Locators), or typing and moving the cursor up and down, they didn’t know that.”

Erickson adds, however, that she expected the transition to be a learning process — even for her, since she is primarily an Apple user.

The students are enjoying their new tools. Their class, part of a daily “Genius Hour” afforded to students to work independently and on whatever they choose, is quiet. The students seem more earnest in their work, and the only sound is the tappity-tap of a keyboard or students softly whispering as they share their work with one another.

As for Erickson, she likes the options the project gives her as a teacher.

Instead of collecting papers and taking them home to grade, she can look at quizzes and assignments immediately and provide feedback while the topic is still fresh in the students’ minds. She also can make suggestions and help privately instruct individuals who might have questions they wouldn’t normally ask in front of the whole class.

“I can post something and ask them, ‘Type in your reactions to this,’” Erickson says. “I can take polls, and I can do really quick, down-and-dirty assessments that way. We can do quiz-like games, and (the students) are having a blast doing that, too.”

Erickson’s group is currently studying Crystal Springs, which is located in the southeastern corner of Pasco County, since the class will take a field trip there Sept. 14-15. The students have been tasked with producing reports on various aspects of the springs, from why they exist to the wildlife that lives nearby, to, well, even sand boils (which, according to Wikipedia, occur when water under pressure wells up through a bed of sand. The water looks like it is “boiling” up from the sand, hence the name).

For other things they study where a field trip is not possible, the students will be able to use their laptops to Skype with experts on location.

“The great things about (the laptops) is they (students) can take this as far as they want,’’ Erickson says, adding that one student already has asked if he can do coding for a Nintendo game. “I think you’ll see a lot more great things as we go forward.”

chiles elementary Project Innovate

Mural Spices Up Media Center At HG Elementary

The ribbon was cut by (left to right) Hillsborough Country Public Schools supervisor of library media services for K-5 John Milburn, Elliott, HGE PTA president Jamie Priest and principal Gaye Holt.

Hunter’s Green Elementary (HGE) media specialist Nancy Elliott celebrates the unveiling of a new mural in the school’s media center.

As students returned to school on August 10, they probably couldn’t help but notice that the media center at Hunter’s Green Elementary (HGE) had undergone a major transformation.

Previously, the walls were decorated with banners, representing books that had been enjoyed by students during the school’s 25-year history.

“They were nice, but they were kind of old and dated,” says PTA president Jamie Priest.

It was the vision of HGE principal Gaye Holt to transform the walls to come alive with pictures that would inspire students as they visit the media center.

“The media center is the hub of the school, and we want our kids in here,” said Holt during her remarks at the official ribbon-cutting ceremony for the school’s newly painted mural on Thursday, Aug. 25.

“The media center has been transformed into a warm and inviting area for students as they choose a book, learn new things and explore their world through technology,” said HGE media specialist Nancy Elliott during her remarks.

From fiction and fantasy to science and math, the mural represents many different genres of books that can be explored in the media center.

“Nonfiction is a big part of reading,” Elliott explained later. “Math and science are a big part of our curriculum and I felt that they should be represented in our mural.”

Priest added, “Every time I look at the mural, I feel like I see something new.”

“I love the variety of it,” agreed Elliott, pointing out a kid investigating, a dolphin that looks like it’s about to swim right off the wall, a space ship soaring through outer space and realistic-looking animals such as a giraffe, panda and elephant.

Elliott is just the second media specialist in the school’s history and has b
een in the position for 10 years. She helped to design the mural with local artists J.P. and Vanessa Parra of CAP Murals, who worked all summer on ladders and scaffolds to create it. It was finished the day before school started.

“It was the shortest summer,” said Holt, “but it was my favorite. I came up to the media center to visit three times a day because it amazed me.”

The process of painting the mural was commemorated in a media center display that shows the before, during and after of creating such a significant piece of art.

The mural was funded in part by the PTA, by the media center budget and by the school budget. The PTA contribution included a legacy gift from the class of 2015, and a large butterfly was painted in the mural as, “an extension of the memorial butterfly garden” planted outside in memory of Nick Wolf, a fifth grade HGE student who passed away shortly before he would have graduated from the school.

“Our school is taking big steps forward,” says Priest. “This is another step, and something I think the kids are going to remember, even after they leave this school.”

Hunter's Green Elementary library mural

Did You Blink & Miss The Summer? Local Schools Are Back In Session!

benito — Incoming sixth-grade students listen to Benito Middle School principal John Sanders offer some words of advice in the school’s cafeteria last month during an introductory camp.

That wailing sound you may have heard echoing across New Tampa on Wednesday morning was likely the sound of local elementary, middle and high school students bemoaning the start of the 2016-17 school year in Hillsborough County.

Already?

Yep, already.

Thanks to state lawmakers responding to the Hillsborough County School District’s request for changes to the school schedule a few years ago, kids went back to school Wednesday, the earliest first day of school in years. And, students in New Tampa were not alone, as 40 of the 67 school districts in Florida returned to school Wednesday as well.

Nearby Pasco County returns to school Monday, August 15.

While summer vacation is one of this country’s great and most treasured traditions — just ask anyone toting a backpack to the bus stop today — chances are if you blinked this year, you missed it.

But, don’t blame the schools; blame Labor Day. Because so many school districts try to start the school year around the holiday — which is Mon., Sept. 5 this year, — it can interfere with classroom time, with schools having to end the second grading period after winter break.

With Labor Day taken out of the equation and finishing the first two grading periods at a more convenient break in the schedule, it led to starting school earlier.

Now, there is an even break after the first two quarters, in December — as opposed to finishing the second quarter sometime in January — and schools can start fresh with the third quarter when school returns in January (on Tue., Jan. 3, 2017, in Hillsborough).

“Change is always complicated, but the reality is, it’s nice to have those first two quarters finished when we break at winter break,’’ said Lawton Chiles Elementary principal Teresa Evans. “I can see in secondary school how that is important.”

While the early start may be a shock to the system — in Evans’ case, she said many of her international students who travel back to their countries over the summer had a harder time planning their vacation — it’s not all bad.

In fact, Evans says, she didn’t hear any complaints from students as last year wound down, and she hasn’t heard any moaning about it from the students she talked to this summer.

“By this time, they’re excited,’’ she says, admitting things might be a little different with the younger students at an elementary school, as opposed to say, budding teenagers heading back to middle school. “Everyone I’ve talked to is excited about coming back to school.”

For the 2016-17 school year, the summer will begin right after Memorial Day. And, at the end of the day, students are going to school the same number of days they always have — usually, right around 180 days.

Which solves another problem — in years past, many teachers admit, the 10-12 remaining days after kids come back from Memorial Day are not always purposeful and it’s difficult to keep students focused.

But, even if the students weren’t ready to return, the schools certainly were ready for them. Rooms were being dusted and cleaned last week, floors were mopped and teachers spent the final days of summer in planning meetings, while their students tried to soak in every last second of it before hitting the books again this week.

“We planned for it,’’ Evans said. “I think that’s the real key. It’s not like it hit us in the middle of the summer. The custodial schedule was the hardest thing to do, to get everything clean before school. That was a real priority for us.”

2016-2017 school schedule

Mon., Sept. 5: No school, Labor Day

Fri., Oct. 7: First grading period ends.

Mon., Oct. 10: No school, nonstudent day.

Fri., Nov. 11: No school, Veterans Day.

Mon.-Fri., Nov. 21-25: No school, Thanksgiving/Fall break.

Mon., Nov. 28: Students return from fall break.

Wed., Dec. 16: Second grading period ends.

Mon.-Fri., Dec. 19-30: No school, Winter break.

Tue., Jan. 3, 2017: Students return from Winter break.

Mon., Jan. 16: No school, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Mon., Feb. 20: No school, Presidents Day.

Fri., March 10: Third grading period ends.

Mon.-Fri., Mar. 13-17: No school, Spring break.

Mon., March 20: Students return from Spring break.

Fri., April 14: No school, nonstudent day.

Wed., May 26: Last day of school. Fourth grading period ends.

Students are released one hour early every Monday and, on the last day of school, are released 2½ hours early.

Benito Middle School School back in session

Goddard School Hoping To Open Soon

The Goddard School is extending its franchise into Wesley Chapel, with the early childhood education provider hoping to open a new location by the end of the year across Bruce B. Downs Blvd. from Florida Hospital Wesley Chapel (FHWC).

According to local owner Dinesh Patel, the new school could soon be opened, weather permitting. He says the summer rains have slowed down construction of the 10,000-sq.-ft.- learning facility, but he is still pushing the company building it.

“We have broken ground, and it looks like we should be able to open by the end of this year in the last quarter,’’ says Patel, a businessman who lives in Punta Gorda but is planning to relocate his family to Wesley Chapel.

Goddard Systems, Inc. (GSI) is a successful franchisor of The Goddard School, with more than 400 locations in 35 states. It was established in 1986 in Malvern, PA, by AAMCO Transmissions founder Anthony A. Martino. Using its proprietary F.L.EX (Fun Learning Experience) program, a play-based curriculum, the school focuses on early education, from the age of six weeks to six years old.

“One of our friends was involved in it, and we liked the concept,’’ Patel says. “”We did a little more looking into it and thought it was a really good idea.”

Patel feels modern day daycares have their place, but don’t work as well as they could. The Goddard School, he adds, takes the daycare model and adds a strong developmental education thrust to it, using the most current and academically-endorsed methods of teaching, while collaborating with parents.

“Nowadays, daycare doesn’t work,’’ he said. “It’s the 21st century. Young children’s brains are like sponges at that young of an age, and child development should be an important part of it.”

Goddard School, however, isn’t a dreary, regimented academic facility. It stresses learning in a fun environment, for best results, whether that is through physical activities like yoga or music and languages. “The children work at their own pace,’’ Patel says, adding that the curriculum is “very advanced.”

In site plans issued to Pasco County, the main learning center will be flanked by two playgrounds – one 7,950-sq.-ft. for toddlers, and another 5,068-sq.ft. playground for infants.

Patel says he expects to hire at least 25 teachers – who must hold degrees in early childhood education or related fields and also must complete an exclusive Goddard School training program — and will maintain a low student-to-teacher ration.

The Wesley Chapel location will be the fifth in the Tampa Bay market. Other locations are in Lakewood Ranch, Lithia (Fishhawk area), Temple Terrace and Westchase.

For more information, call Patel at 603-6100, or visit GoddardSchool.com/tampa/wesley-chapel-bruce-b-downs-boulevard-fl.

Carrollwood Day School Offers Students A World-Class Education

For New Tampa and Wesley Chapel families who consider the standardized testing and one-size-fits-all curricula that have become synonymous with public schools unsuitable to the educational needs of their children, there is an alternative.

Carrollwood Day School (CDS) — located 30 minutes from most of Wesley Chapel on W. Bearss Ave., a few miles west of I-75, distinguishes itself by offering more than academic excellence, says Head of School Ryan Kelly.

“The main emphasis (here) is character development,” Kelly says. “That’s the foundation.” He adds that the school promotes that development through its classroom instruction, which is based on the International Baccalaureate (IB) World School Programme.

The IB Programme is based on educational principles developed and promoted globally by the Geneva, Switzerland-based foundation called International Baccalaureate (IB). According to the IB website (IBO.org), its mission statement is to, “develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.”

Schools throughout the world, from Albania to Zimbabwe, offer IB Programmes. CDS became an IB World School in 2005.

Kelly says the curriculum provides students what they will need to be effective global citizens and healthy risk takers, and that teaching life skills, as well as academics, is an important part of a CDS education.

“At the young age it’s anything from manners to treating a friend well,” Kelly says, “and then, as you get into elementary school, it’s some of the same but we work on public speaking and a variety of other things. And, in middle and high school, it’s (teaching) what you should do in difficult situations.”

The goal is to provide knowledge and tools that can lead to success, and that includes lessons about what to do when things go awry.

Kelly characterizes this as a “wholistic” approach. “We’re looking at the whole child,” he says. “There’s a lot of pressure on teenagers today and what we work on is building resiliency within our students, learning how to fail and not let it ruin your whole life and just understanding that there are going to be obstacles in your way.”

CDS director of marketing Shannon Gauthier says the school’s curriculum of Primary Years (age 3-grade 5), Middle Years (grades 6-10) and Diploma programmes (grades 11-12) is distinctive.

“We are the sixth school in the United States authorized to offer all three levels of the IB Programme,” Gauthier says.

About 1,000 students from age two through high school attend the co-educational, private school (unaffiliated with any particular religious group) which began in 1981 as an early childhood learning center in a rented storefront space. Over the years, CDS added grade levels and moved to different locations to accommodate its growth.

It became an IB World School in 2005 and moved to its current location on W. Bearss Ave. the following year, which is also when CDS’ high school division opened.

Academic programs emphasizing science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) have become popular, as students and their families seek knowledge applicable to the modern workplace. CDS adds another “E” (for Entrepreneurship) in its unique STEEM program.

“I want to make sure they are exposed to the STEEM areas because research shows that’s where the jobs are going to be,” says Kelly. “I brought entrepreneurship into the STEM acronym because it’s much more than just building a business, it’s about innovation, it’s about thinking outside the box.”

The STEEM emphasis is applied throughout all grade levels at CDS. Kelly says the IB curriculum’s emphasis on character development provides students a good academic foundation and personal skills that match up well with the school’s STEEM emphasis.

“It’s about social entrepreneurship and that’s about volunteering. A lot of times math, science, engineering and computer technology all sit in their silos and my goal is that there’s much more crosstalk between them all.”

Kelly says students learn to apply their knowledge and skills to real-world problems, like developing a social entrepreneurship business to tutor neighborhood kids.

And So Much More!

CDS offers more than just rigorous academics. Athletic opportunities range from equestrian to football. The softball and volleyball teams have made the state final four in recent years, and the football team is always a playoff contender, to name a few athletic successes.

Several honor societies are represented at CDS and students can join with others in clubs that explore drama, rocketry, table tennis, music, yoga and more. There’s even a model United Nations and a chapter of Oprah’s Ambassadors.

Many activities take place in the new, 25,000-square-foot Hayes Family Gymnasium that cost $3.5 million to build. There also is a performing arts theater located in the main building.

Tampa Palms resident Anh Flinter’s three daughters attend CDS and says the school has served her family’s educational needs well since moving to Tampa from New Jersey in 2009.

“My children are very happy and have flourished at CDS, (thanks) to the rigorous education derived from the IB program,”Flinter says, also noting that the teaching excellence of the CDS faculty and the families who volunteer their time and talents as some of the things that have prompted her to say, “Sending our daughters to CDS was one of the best decisions we’ve made.”

Sandy Smith is a CDS teacher who started out as a parent of a student at the school. The second grade teacher has been at CDS for nine years, following 15 years in the Hillsborough County School District. Her professional relationship with CDS began shortly after her daughter transferred there.

“When my daughter was transitioning to middle school, I wanted something different for her,” Smith says. “When I came to CDS, I just loved the family environment. It’s so warm and inviting.”

Families can contact the admissions office for a tour and several Open House events are held throughout the year. The public also will have a chance to visit the campus on Tuesday, August 9, when educator and author Michele Borba presents a program in which she will, “share hands-on tools to help in parenting for success,” and will provide the audience, “immediately usable strategies and an actionable roadmap for transforming cultures and improving relationships,” according to the CDS website. Borba is the author of the book UnSelfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-About-Me World, which has made the summer reading list of the staff and faculty at CDS.

CDS is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the Florida Council of Independent Schools, the Florida Kindergarten Council, and the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

There are two CDS campuses. The main campus, consisting of primary, middle, and high school facilities, as well as the main administrative offices is located at 1515 W. Bearss Ave. in Carrollwood. The early childhood campus is located at 12606 Casey Rd., in Carrollwood Village.

As a private school, CDS charges tuition, although Kelly says scholarship opportunities are available. He notes that there is some capacity to accommodate students with Individual Education Plans (IEP), but “CDS does not have the extensive resources that public schools have in that regard.”

The 2016-17 school year begins on Tuesday, Aug. 16. Families interested in learning more about CDS can check out the school’s website at CarrollwoodDaySchool.org or by calling 920-2288.